---
title: "This lamp grows around its own skeleton"
locale: "en"
url: "https://irz.fr/en/articles/gourdo-mycelium-luffa-en"
markdown_url: "https://irz.fr/en/articles/gourdo-mycelium-luffa-en.md"
category: "craft"
tags: ["biomaterials", "mycelium", "luffa", "lighting"]
published_at: "2026-08-22T16:30:00.000Z"
author: "Hugo Marchal"
translation: "https://irz.fr/fr/articles/gourdo-mycelium-luffa-fr.md"
---

# This lamp grows around its own skeleton

GOURDO combines mycelium and luffa to grow part of its structure. More than a “natural” object, the prototype shows what manufacturing with biology forces a designer to control.

Justin Wan's lamp starts inside a dried gourd, in the fibrous network familiar from a luffa sponge. In **GOURDO**, he divides the fruit by function: the denser inner section becomes a scaffold in the base, while the softer porous layer forms a shade for filtering the light.[1](https://www.designboom.com/design/mushroom-lamp-mycelium-luffa-composite-biomaterial-lighting-design-gourdo/)

Mycelium occupies the space between, growing through an organic substrate and binding material around the luffa core; the finished base looks moulded, although part of its manufacture consists of waiting for a fungal network to occupy the form prepared for it.

The process is more revealing than a vague “natural” label because growth has become one of the operations used to make the object.

## Two networks

Wan had already explored luffa in **Luffa Stoolita**, a stool made with Paul Edward Liu and Tim Ting-Hao Chen at Columbia. Different parts of the fruit were used for formwork, reinforcement and cushioning, alongside a mixture containing spent coffee grounds and clay-rich soil.[5](https://materialdistrict.com/article/a-stool-made-of-spent-shower-sponges-and-coffee-grounds/)

GOURDO keeps the separation of functions while adding another biological network: its project description treats the dense luffa core as a scaffold inside the composite, around which oyster-mushroom mycelium colonizes the substrate and binds the particles.[1](https://www.designboom.com/design/mushroom-lamp-mycelium-luffa-composite-biomaterial-lighting-design-gourdo/)

The distinction between design intent and measured performance matters here: the project presents luffa as fibrous reinforcement and mycelium as the material consolidating the mass, while no mechanical results are published for **this lamp**. Research on mycelium-based composites shows substantial variation in strength and other properties according to fungal species, substrate, density and processing.[2](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s43939-024-00084-8)

> Illustration: Mycelium samples colonizing fibrous substrates during GOURDO material experiments. Before forming the lamp, Wan tested different substrates and observed how the mycelium colonized them. Credit: [Justin Wan](https://www.designboom.com/design/mushroom-lamp-mycelium-luffa-composite-biomaterial-lighting-design-gourdo/).

## About two weeks

The published process gives a fairly concrete meaning to “growing” a product. Wan first tests mixtures containing shredded luffa, coconut fibre, corn kernels and wood chips, introduces oyster mushroom spores into the substrate, and leaves it in incubation for about **two weeks** until colonization.[1](https://www.designboom.com/design/mushroom-lamp-mycelium-luffa-composite-biomaterial-lighting-design-gourdo/)

The colonized material is broken up, combined with fresh substrate and packed into a mould containing luffa cores, followed by another growth phase under controlled temperature and humidity; once the form has consolidated, the part leaves the mould for oven-drying, which stops growth and stabilizes the material.[1](https://www.designboom.com/design/mushroom-lamp-mycelium-luffa-composite-biomaterial-lighting-design-gourdo/)

Biological manufacturing here means substrate preparation, inoculation, environmental control, incubation, moulding and drying rather than simply leaving a mushroom to grow into a lamp. Growth replaces some joining operations, but introduces a different set of variables from machining an inert sheet or block.

> **Growing the form**
> - Luffa, coconut, corn, wood: Substrate
> - First colonization: ≈ 2 weeks
> - Luffa + fresh substrate: Mould
> - Growth is stopped: Oven
> Process described in the GOURDO project submission

## The skin glows

Luffa performs another job outside the composite, where its softer outer layer wraps around the base as a lampshade and the cellular network scatters light passing through it.[1](https://www.designboom.com/design/mushroom-lamp-mycelium-luffa-composite-biomaterial-lighting-design-gourdo/)

The move is simple and effective: one plant appears in two forms, first as an internal scaffold and again as an optical surface. By contrast with the broad label “bio-based,” Wan is selecting two structures from the same fruit for two separate tasks.

At about 210 mm long and 160 mm high, GOURDO also shows a property that industrial finishing often works hard to suppress: variation from one surface to another, because fibres, colonization and drying are unlikely to produce skins matching to a fraction of a millimetre.[1](https://www.designboom.com/design/mushroom-lamp-mycelium-luffa-composite-biomaterial-lighting-design-gourdo/)

> Illustration: GOURDO lamp showing the irregular texture of its mycelium composite and luffa shade. Variation in the surface comes directly from the fibrous material and growth process. Credit: [Justin Wan](https://www.designboom.com/design/mushroom-lamp-mycelium-luffa-composite-biomaterial-lighting-design-gourdo/).

## Water comes back

The prototype also meets a familiar biomaterial problem in water. Reviews of mycelium-based composites repeatedly identify moisture uptake as a limitation because porous structures and lignocellulosic substrates make performance sensitive to service conditions, with density, fungal species and surface treatments all affecting the result.[2](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s43939-024-00084-8) A recent review of building applications treats long-term durability under prolonged humidity as a critical problem.[4](https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/18/16/4225)

Luffa fibres are hydrophilic as well, and the luffa-composite literature commonly reports greater water uptake as the proportion of natural fibre increases; treatments can reduce this sensitivity, although they also alter the material and potentially the environmental balance.[3](https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/18/7683)

The published project material includes no humidity or aging test specific to GOURDO, and fire performance deserves the same caution: some mycelium-composite formulations show useful charring and flame behaviour, but reviews point to limited standardization and certification across formulations.[4](https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/18/16/4225) Those results cannot simply be transferred to a small experimental lamp because it contains mycelium.

## After growth

Biomaterial stories often jump directly from “grown” to “compostable,” a shortcut that the available GOURDO documentation cannot support.

Mycelium composites can biodegrade under suitable conditions, a property documented for the material family.[2](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s43939-024-00084-8) A finished lamp also contains electrical hardware, wiring and a light source, along with treatments or joining details that the public project material does not fully describe, so its end of life has to be considered at the level of the assembled product rather than the bare biomaterial sample.

The oven matters because drying is part of stabilizing the grown material, while broader studies of mycelium composites note that sterilization, controlled incubation, drying and post-treatment all contribute to the environmental and energy cost of production.[2](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s43939-024-00084-8)[4](https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/18/16/4225)

GOURDO remains a small prototype rather than evidence for industrial-scale manufacturing, but the narrower lesson is useful: a designer can assign different jobs to two biological structures, prepare the conditions for growth and accept that some variation in the finished object comes from a process that cannot be controlled like an injection mould.

Growing the material trades familiar manufacturing constraints for others, including time, humidity, contamination, drying and aging. In this lamp, biology belongs to the manufacturing process rather than serving as a shortcut around it.

## References

1. [Justin Wan / designboom, “GOURDO explores mycelium and luffa as composite biomaterial for lighting design”, June 25, 2026](https://www.designboom.com/design/mushroom-lamp-mycelium-luffa-composite-biomaterial-lighting-design-gourdo/)
2. [Madusanka et al., “A review of recent advances in fungal mycelium based composites”, Discover Materials, 2024](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s43939-024-00084-8)
3. [Alhijazi et al., “Recent Developments in Luffa Natural Fiber Composites: Review”, Sustainability, 2020](https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/18/7683)
4. [“A Review of Mycelium Bio-Composites as Energy-Efficient Sustainable Building Materials”, Energies, 2025](https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/18/16/4225)
5. [MaterialDistrict, “A stool made of spent shower sponges and coffee grounds”, April 23, 2024](https://materialdistrict.com/article/a-stool-made-of-spent-shower-sponges-and-coffee-grounds/)